Time we had the final say on death

Oct 31 2009 by Helen Rae, The Journal

HUNDREDS of people have had their say on their own death as part of a North East public consultation.

Last month, NHS North East joined forces with health, social care, voluntary sectors, patients and carers to produce A Good Death Charter.

It is the UK’s first charter on end of life care and sets out the proposals for the kind of care and support which people who are dying, their families and carers, can expect to receive.

Its aim is to gather people’s attitudes towards death and dying and encourage them to think and talk about their plans for end of life care.

Since its launch on October 5, more than 800 people from the region have already given their views.

Prof Edwin Pugh, consultant in end of life care for NHS North East, said: “There aren’t too many taboos left in the world these days, but one of them is a proper debate about how we want to die.

“Although death comes to us all, we seem curiously reluctant to talk about the way we want to go and what really matters to us in terms of care and support.”

The public consultation on A Good Death centres around a questionnaire – which is available online at www.agooddeath.co.uk – and research is also being carried out on streets around the region’s towns and cities.

The questionnaire asks people to consider issues such as; how comfortable they feel about discussing the subject of death, and whether they have any written plans for end of life care, financial wishes or a written plan for their funeral.

The charter has been developed as part of the Better Health, Fairer Health Strategy which plans to make the North East the healthiest region in England.

Prof Stephen Singleton, regional director of public health, said: “We need to own up to the fact that we are all going to die at some point and, therefore, we want to ensure people die in the best possible way with the best possible end of life care.”

Information collated from the questionnaire will help the NHS North East work around end of life care. The findings are expected to be made available by January next year.

Page 2: A hard but necessary conversation